A Celebration

As most of you know, December 15 was our FIRST anniversary. Originally, we had planned on spending our day (weekend) in New York City since we thought we had to go for an event through Ryan's work. When those plans fell through, the whole weekend opened up and boy, did we fill it! We started our celebration on Friday night, spending the evening in Boston, eating dinner and checking out the holiday lights with our good friends Kristen and Stephen. We talked about going ice skating on Frog Pond, but the temperature was in the teens and none of us were feeling it when the time rolled around. Instead, we drove to Quincy Center to check out the biggest Christmas tree I've ever seen! Since it was so cold, we walked around for a bit before calling it a night a little early.

 

Saturday was all about Christmas in the Smith household. In the morning, Ryan and I celebrated our first "Christmas" together. We decided to open our gifts to each other early because we're driving home on Friday afternoon and already have so much stuff to bring home. Plus, we thought it would be fun to celebrate our portion of the holiday just the two of us. We spent the morning opening presents, eating a DELICIOUS bacon, spinach, egg casserole, and attempting to take a decent picture in front of our first tree by placing my camera on the back of the couch (A tri-pod purchase might be in my near future...). Saturday afternoon, we attended a Christmas party of a friend's from church and at night, we cooked our first Christmas ham and watched... wait for it... Christmas movies! (Who guessed that?!)

 

Sunday, on our actual anniversary, we had big plans to drive down to Newport, RI and tour a couple mansions while they're all decorated for the holidays with our friends Rachel and Chris. Unfortunately, the weather got in the way (it was super icy outside from a winter storm the night before). While we were trapped at home, we continued our movie marathon, wrapped the remaining Christmas presents we're taking home, and opened our anniversary gifts to each other. The traditional 1-year anniversary gift is "paper" which we technically used, but put our own spin on it. I gifted Ryan with a big ole bottle of Scotch that came in a cardboard (paper) container and Ryan gave me a beautiful Alex and Ani bracelet that her purchased from "The Paper Store." Well played, Ryan. Well played. Also, as a side note, because it's too funny to NOT share... Ryan and I both got each other the SAME Anniversary card! Do we know each other's senses of humor or what?!?

 

 

For dinner Sunday night, we went to one of our favorite types of places, a Japanese Steak House. The dinner was fabulous and the company was perfect (of course). We came home and attempted to eat the top layer of our wedding cake, but it was AWFUL so we chucked it and opened up an AMAZING chocolate cake sent to us by Uncle Rick and Aunt Jane (Thanks, again!), eating that alongside a couple glasses of champagne. Overall, I couldn't have asked for a better first anniversary weekend. Even though we were trapped in our apartment on our anniversary, I wouldn't have wanted to be "stuck" inside with anyone else! I love you, Ryan. Here's to many more anniversary celebrations!